WK 15- ARTIST CONVERSATION- NANCY YOUNG

This week I visited the exhibit of Nancy Young, a printmaker here at CSULB. Young is stoked to receive BFA in print making and excited because this is her final show case in CSULB School of Art. Young had the opportunity to present her art work in the SOA galleries by asking for the chance to show her work to everyone. Nancy started attending California State University Long Beach in 1984 and left after being placed on academic probation following issues with substance abuse as a result of her bipolar disorder. Nancy enjoys taking printmaking classes and has taken all of them at Long Beach State.

Young works in Orange County as a programmer and simply enjoys art as a side passion with no desire for financial gains. Nancy’s work consists of printmaking on several surfaces, metal, rubber, paper and shows many images of landscapes and crows witching these different environments. Most of Young’s art works are extremely intricate in the fact that all the details in each piece are very defined. There are a lot of lines, especially rough and rigged lines because of the materials and process she goes through when creating this works.

The inspiration behind Nancy Young’s work is deeply personal. She creates pieces at locations she has personally visited and that she holds significance in. The reoccurring theme in all of her work is crows, these birds represent aspects in her life that need to be freed, “like a bird leaving the nest”. Youwng’s exhibit had an obvious focus on black crows. Her work is a reflection of loss and grief after losing her beloved husband nine years ago who continues to be an inspiration to her expressions, and the loss of one of her dogs.Nancy’s work explores ideas of personal issues. She mentions her dogs and the grief of losing her husband nine years ago. She describes this exhibition as a bookmark for her life that after all these years she’s finally finished getting her degree. The crow in her work symbolizes the fact that people are always traveling and moving to different places.

I personally loved this weeks exhibit. The amount of personal influence in Nancy Young’s work really made the images that much more moving. I believe she is a very talented artist with an interesting background and past. Her story is inspiration for anyone who left school and is considering coming back or is afraid they might fail. Her work actually looks like fun.